Amid the moves by the Federal Government to launch investigations into last Sunday's plane crash in Lagos that claimed over 160 lives, Sunday Vanguard can reveal why reports of past air crash investigations in Nigeria were never made public.
The Federal Government, according to top placed sources, failed to make public the reports because, in some instances, the local versions contradicted the versions prepared by the National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) of the US, renowned for air crash investigations across the world. The situation thus puts the government in a quandary.
A former Aviation Minister, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode corroborated this when he told Sunday Vanguard, last week, that the contents and information retrieved from the black boxes of crashed planes in the country were kept away by some interests "in an attempt to manipulate the reports".
Fani-Kayode said: "I must tell you that in practice what has happened since 2005 is that the contents of and information in the black boxes of the various planes that crashed have either been kept away from the Nigerian public or the black box itself has just disappeared or been stolen. The result is that no one really gets to know the truth about what really happened regarding these crashes except for those in the corridors of power at the Ministry of Aviation.
"Let me tell you what happened in the past. This is done in an attempt to hide that truth and manipulate the report. I sincerely hope that this does not happen in this case. I am also hoping that the government will allow the American National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB which is the agency that is charged to investigate all air crashes all over the world, a free reign and a free hand to do its job to help in establishing what really happened".
Vanguard Nigeria